The Dogs of Toronto Animal Services South

Now I come home after work and walk into the house and Smitten is there to greet me at the door. Keaton is in his crate, sitting, wagging his tail urgently, waiting for me to let him out. I walk over to the crate and unlatch the door. Keaton is so excited, he can barely contain himself. I open the door. I say, "Hi Keaton," and he gives me barely a "Yeah, hi," then passes by me and trots over to Smitten. They stare at each other.

It's finally time to throw down.

These two dogs have become wrestling fiends. They wrestle first thing in the morning. The wrestle first chance in the evening. They wrestle before they go to sleep. If I didn't tell them to stop, they'd probably wrestle until they collapsed in exhaustion. The longest session they've had is close to an hour. Usually, they go for at least fifteen minutes before I get them to cease and desist.

Here's the action.

It all starts with some cursory feints and mouth jabs.

Here we start to see one of Keaton's signature moves which is the snowplow. He gets low and snowplows Smitten's legs. Inside, on the slippery hardwood, this causes her to fall over but in this next segment, she recovers.

The next clip shows a perfect example of Keaton's snowplow on Smitten. Note how the snowplow is usually followed by the now-I-rip-your-throat-out technique.

Keaton's second signature move is the bum-in-yer-face technique. He uses it hear to immobilize Smitten before he does a quick spin and attempts another snowplow.

Keaton's third technique is rarely used but here is a good example of the Grizzy Bear where he gets up on his hind legs while waving his front legs around before attacking, usually in a feeble attempt to hump Smitten.

Inevitably, the fight goes outside. Here they come.

Smitten has traction outside and this gives her an advantage. She's now able to use her weight to control the fight and Keaton's attempts at snowplowing don't fare as well. You'll also notice how, near the end of this next clip, Smitten does a shake. Dogs often shake as a signal that they want a time-out. Keaton doesn't care that Smitten wants a time-out. Instead, he uses her momentary lapse in attention to attack. Sneaky bugger.

Keaton's not the only one to fight dirty, though. Next you'll see Keaton interrupt the fight for a time-out by picking up a stick. This is his signal that he wants a breather. No way Smitten is going to give him that after he jumped her while she was having a shake so she jumps him while he is preoccupied with the stick.

For all you fight fanatics out there, here's almost three full minutes of these two nutbars carrying on.

4 Comments to “Daily UFC”

This is exactly how my two dogs (Halladay & Wookie) play. Isn't it great? Halladay sounds like a rabid animal when he's going after Wookie, which used to freak people out at the dog park, but they got over it pretty quickly.

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A request

The reason for this blog is to help get specific dogs adopted from TAS but equally important is to try to normalize the idea of shelter dogs being just as good and just as desirable as any other dogs including those which are regularly merchandised by backyard breeders, puppy millers and those few remaining pet store owners who still feel a need to sell live animals. The single greatest stigma shelter animals still face is the belief that shelter animals are substandard animals. Anyone who has had enough experience with shelter animals knows this is untrue but the general public hasn't had the same experiences you've had. They see a nice dog photo in a glossy magazine and too many of them would never think of associating that dog with a dog from a shelter. After all, no one abandons perfectly good dogs, right? Unfortunately, as we all know, perfectly good dogs are abandoned all the time.

The public still too often associates shelter dogs with images of beat up, sick, dirty, severely traumatized animals and while we definitely sometimes see victims such as these, they are certainly not the majority and, regardless, even the most abused animals can very often be saved and made whole again.

Pound Dogs sometimes discusses the sad histories some of the dogs have suffered. For the most part, though, it tries to present the dogs not as victims but as great potential family members. The goal is to raise the profiles of animals in adoption centers so that a potential pet owner sees them as the best choice, not just as the charity choice.

So, here's the favour I'm asking. Whenever you see a dog picture on these pages you think is decent enough, I'd like you to consider sharing it on Facebook or any other social media sites you're using (I know many of you do this already and thank you for that). And when you share it, please mention that the dog in the photo is a shelter dog like so many other shelter dogs waiting for a home. If we can get even five percent of the pet buying public to see shelter dogs differently, to see how beautiful they are and how wonderful they are, and to consider shelter dogs as their first choice for a new family member, we can end the suffering of homeless pets in this country.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------